Digital Critical Edition of Nietzsche’s Works and Letters (eKGWB)

The Digitale Kritische Gesamtausgabe Werke und Briefe (eKGWB) edited by Paolo D’Iorio and published by Nietzsche Source is the digital version of the German reference edition of Nietzsche’s works, posthumous fragments, and correspondence edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Berlin/New York, de Gruyter, 1967– and Nietzsche Briefwechsel. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Berlin/New York, de Gruyter, 1975–).

The quality of the text has been achieved through meticulous text collation, carried out by philologists who compare each word of the digitized text with the printed edition. Moreover, all the philological corrections that are scattered in the critical apparatuses of the different commentary volumes of the print edition have been integrated directly into the electronic text. All corrected passages are highlighted and, upon mouse click, readers can see the previous uncorrected passage of the print version. The result is the most correct version of the Colli/Montinari critical edition.

Previous electronic versions, sold on CD-ROM or available on the Internet, did not only not integrate the corrections, but added their own errors due to insufficient collation work. They also offered only the works and posthumous fragments while this electronic edition will include, for the first time, also the electronic version of Nietzsche’s correspondence.

The reader can freely consult and cite the text with ease, search for words or phrases either in the edition as a whole or selected parts, and then print these passages or lists of occurrences. XML-TEI encoding ensures interoperability with other text archives. The eKGWB relies on a specific digital classification system providing each work, chapter, aphorism or fragment with a unique and stable internet address. The sigla used in the URL correspond to the standard abbreviations established by the printed version, thus ensuring communication between paper and digital world. See, for example, the first section of The Antichrist, which can be reached at the following address: http://www.nietzschesource.org/eKGWB/AC-1

This makes the eKGWB one of the first digital editions that can be quoted and referred to easily in academic research.